“Was it, indeed, Baron? You excite me immensely. What was that?”
“Let us all go in here, and I will tell you.”
They entered the summer-house, and seated themselves on the semi-hexagonal bench which enclosed a stout rustic table.
“Now,” said Sir Francis, his eyes sparkling, “out with it every bit, Baron, and give our hungering souls to feed.”
Le Sage took a pinch of snuff, laid the box handy, dusted his plump knees with his handkerchief, and, leaning back and loosely twining his fingers before him, began:—
“I have this, my friends, to say to you both before I start. What I have to tell, my story—and not the most creditable part of it—is fundamentally concerned with one about whom, it might be thought, my obligations as his guest should keep me silent. That would be quite true, were it not for a single consideration so vital as to constitute in itself a complete moral justification of my candour. In a few days, or weeks, the whole will be common property, and that figure subjected, I fear, to a Pharisaic criticism, which will be none the more bitter for his friends having anticipated it and rallied about him. Moreover, he himself has bound me to no sort of silence in the matter, but, on the contrary, has rather intimated to me that he leaves to my discretion the choice and manner of his defence—or apologia. It may be admitted, perhaps, that he does not see these things quite from our point of view: he derives from another generation and another code of morals: but for what he is, or has been, he has paid a very severe penalty, and we must judge him now by what he has suffered rather than by what he has deserved.
“So much for this confidence; which, I beg you to consider, is still, though unenforced, a confidence, due to you, Sir Francis, through your coming matrimonial connexion with the family”—(Mr. Bickerdike, with a start and a positive gape, which lifted his eyebrows, looked across at the young Baronet, who grinned and nodded)—“and to you, my friend, for your unshakable loyalty to a much-tried member of it. And with that I will quit grace and get to the joint.”
The Macuba came once more into action, the box was again laid aside, and the two settled down finally to listen.
“In the following narrative,” said M. le Baron, “what was and remains conjectural it must be left to events to substantiate. I claim so much, though, for myself, I entertain no doubt as to the truth.”
“My story opens in the Café l’Univers in Paris, where we two, Mr. Bickerdike, strangers to one another, were sitting one September afternoon precisely a year ago. We got into talk on the subject of a neighbour, an artist, and an object of interest to us both, who was busily engaged in sketching into a book pencil-memoranda of the more noticeable hats worn by passing ladies. He worked fast and cleverly, and was manifestly an adept at his craft. Presently, after having watched him for some time, I asked you if you had observed anything peculiar about his hands. You had not, it seemed, and no more was said. But there was a peculiarity, and it was this: when he lifted his right hand, as artists will do, to measure the perspective value of an object, it was always the second finger of the hand which he interposed before his eye. I watched him do it over and over again, and it was persistently the same. Why, I found myself asking myself? Was the trick due to some malformation of the first finger, or to some congenital impulse? Not to the first, I was presently able to convince myself. To the alternative proposition I was fated to receive an answer both affirmative and illuminating: but it was not to come just yet.